In the 18th century, a budding psychiatrist devised a foolproof way of distinguishing the sane person from the insane.

The subject was locked in a room. On one side of the room were water taps; on the other side were mops and buckets. The test began when the taps were turned on. An individual diagnosed as mad would rush to the mops and buckets. The sane individual would stride over to the taps and turn them off.

Recently, we were reminded of a deluge of planetary proportions. The UN issued its Global Assessment Report on the state of the world’s biodiversity. The figures are astonishing and sobering.

Extinction looms for one million species; three-quarters of land and two-thirds of oceans have been severely altered by humans; plastic pollution is up tenfold in 40 years; crops worth three-quarters of a trillion dollars could be at risk from the loss of pollinators; 25 million kilometres of new roads are expected in 30 years. And so on.

The report makes clear: The swell of extinction is more rapid now than at any point since the dawn of humanity. Species are vanishing up to 1,000 times faster than normal — the consequence of a rising human population and its resource demands.

Our impulse is to scramble for a mop, to stem the consequences of the flood rather than deal with its source. We tinker with offsets, control of predators, technological fixes, weak regulations and mild incentives while we hunt for resources to replace those we depleted. As the waters threaten to overwhelm us, we remain fixed on the immediacy of business-as-usual. We cast around for more buckets.

Are we simply mad?

The crux of the #extinction crisis is a mismatch in scale. And the solution is to shift from the immediacy of business-as-usual to improving people’s lives in the long run. https://t.co/Q4H7fAsJih

From ecology, we know the practicality of biodiversity for people. Species and their services are the underpinning of our wealth and welfare.

We know the enhanced resilience and productivity of ecosystems when species are plentiful. A rich mix of plants, animals and microbes is an insurance policy with good dividends.

And we intuitively grasp the finality of extinction. The disappearance of species, we know, is the only human impact that is truly irreversible. Extinction is eternal.

And there’s the clue to the crisis: Time. In our hurried society, what often passes as success are short-term achievements — higher yields and higher profits, with a focus on the next quarter, next year, or next election. Eternity, you might say, requires a longer view. Curbing extinction is a long-term enterprise. Success is typically measured in decades, often beyond individual careers and lifetimes.

A discrepancy in timescale, therefore, might distinguish rationality from apparent lunacy. From one end of the timescale, mopping up environmental consequences seems adequate. From the other end, it clearly will not suffice.

And from this vantage point, the solution also becomes clearer. We must pay special attention to one species: Homo sapiens. ]

Psychological studies are instructive. In trials of choice, people often favour immediate, smaller rewards over later, larger rewards. In the real world, indeed, we can be seduced by the quick gratification of smoking, overindulgence or a sedentary lifestyle, despite our good intentions. Such “delay discounting” is associated with impulsive choices, even when at variance with our long-term interests.

Extinction, then, is as much psychological as biological. It represents the global outcome of poor human choices — a tyranny of small decisions.

Our institutions, too, move at a clip incommensurate with nature. The modern news cycle endures roughly one day; the political horizon stretches a few years; even resource management plans rarely exceed a decade or two. These temporal mismatches impede our ability to meet the challenges of conservation.

The coming decade represents a window of opportunity: We could choose to set aside and recover wildlife habitat, trim our carbon emissions, purchase products from sustainable harvesting, and demand that our leaders and professionals strive to improve people’s lives in the long run.

Wisdom springs from perspective. A favourite story of mine concerns an elderly Marshal Lyautey and his gardener. They debate the value of planting a particular tree. “It will not bloom,” says the gardener, “for decades.” “Then,” replies the marshal, “plant it this afternoon.”

James Schaefer is professor of biology at Trent University and author of Two Houses of Oikos: Essays from the Environmental Age. @JamesASchaefer

This Week's Flyers

Comments

Postmedia is pleased to bring you a new commenting experience. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.